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by Lyra Kamiya
Summary: They say everyone has a reason for gaming. For some, it’s as simple as an addiction. For others, it’s the one place they can do everything they want. For me, it's simply where I belong


A/N: No, I don't own .hack. I do, however, own a .hack RP board, my character on which was the inspiration for this story. I've tried very hard to avoid making her a Mary Sue while still having her be a modified self-insert... So turn back now if you want, or give her story a chance, it's up to you. You never know what a story will be like until you read it..

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They say everyone has a reason for gaming. For some, it's as simple as an addiction. For others, it's the one place they can do everything they want.

For me, it started out as sheer boredom. I had nothing better to do with my time one day when I was fifteen, and so for the first time in my life, I picked up a controller and started to play a real game. That game, the realm which would later become my "home", was The World.

I'd been alive during Pluto's Kiss; I wasn't one of the young kids running around the game who had no idea about everything that had happened to make The World everything it was. I'd been nine at the time, but I worked with computers all the time for school, so I was well aware of the sudden disappearance of computers for two years. Much to the disgust of my friends, I'd spent a lot of that time playing around on my great-grandfather's typewriter - yes, one of those old-fashioned things. It worked for what I needed it for, but naturally, it just wasn't the same as the smooth functioning of a computer. When the Altamit OS was announced, I begged my parents to get it for me for Christmas. While the rest of my middle-school friends were after clothes and makeup, I was happy to have a computer to write on and the internet to explore.

I guess that should have been my tip-off that I wasn't quite normal.

I didn't play the Beta, Fragment. It was only available to sixteen-and-up, and I was far from that. I also didn't play the initial release of The World, despite a free trial version coming on the second upgrade of Altamit. Granted, I did look at their website, and considered downloading the full version then, but the idea was quickly forgotten.

But almost overnight, all my male friends - fellow computer nerds - were playing it. It was only a couple of weeks before the girls were as well. Instead of wondering what was so great about the game, I simply resented the fact that my friends would choose a game over me and continued on with my life as I was. I guess other people would have considered me lonely, but I had my writings to keep me company; imaginary friends, I suppose, but entertainment nonetheless.

The decision to play The World came three years later, when my boyfriend at the time talked me into it. We knew each other strictly online, and he thought the "face-to-face" interaction that the game simulated might make us closer. I told him that I'd think about it; the yearly fee was a big commitment for a job-less fifteen year old.

It was two weeks later, after he'd given up on getting me to join, that I found myself sitting bored in my room, all muse gone and thus bored enough that I finally turned on the program. The registration process was long and tedious, but I was impressed at how customizable the character designs were. It took nearly an hour of experimentation before I was satisfied with my choice: a tall female pole arm-user with a black braid long enough to be considered a weapon in its own right.

This is not the story of that character. That character was one of more than eight I made over the course of the next three years, though she was the one I used most. She was a member of one of the mid-sized clans, and decently well-known within that group. Her level was in the thirties, which would have been a big deal had they not decided to change the rules of The World so that there was no longer a level 100 cap. She had a decent collection of powerful weapons, along with a few rare items, but she was exactly that.

A she. Not a me. For everyone else, their character was them. An extension of themselves into The World. I just couldn't feel that way about it, not with that character.

My other seven characters had been abandoned when they were killed outside a party, leaving no way to be ressurected.

Shiranza suffered the most humiliating defeat out of the eight. She was abandoned for the very thing that brought her to life: boredom.

Two years later, I was a typical 20-year-old writer: trying to get into my third college in as many years. I was doing just fine in each school, but none of them had what I wanted, and I'd yet to find a decent muse. I was headed for a new city the next day, and the pictures of this place sent shivers though me. Rivers everywhere, people everywhere, gorgeous sunsets... It was like a dream come true. It was also hauntingly familiar, I realized as I made yet another sweep-through of my apartment, checking for any objects I might have left on shelves or elsewhere.

My computer was about the only thing not yet packed, and it was doubtful it'd really be packed until I was in line for security at the airport the next day. Laying beside it was a few printed pages, red marks dotting the lines and blue scribbles filling the margins. I'd scored a publishing deal in the first semester of my second year of college, and the book had been successful enough to get rid of the first year's worth of tuition debt. They wanted a second one ASAP, and I'd assured them I'd deliver; the prospect of paying off my "sophmore" year and maybe my first month's rent was exciting.

So far though, my muse had been all but useless. Hence the move. Hence why getting a day job instead of returning to school for a third freshman year was so appealing. A lot of things looked appealing right then, so why my FMD was the thing I chose to give into, I'll never know.

Not that I'm complaining.

You see, something strange happened right then. I thought that I'd just log into The World to pass a couple hours until I got tired. But something about the new Heavy Blade character I created, simple as she was, made me grow quickly attached to her. Attached enough that I did the unthinkable: I named her with my pen name.

I quickly pulled up a character editing program I'd downloaded off the web. My whole life I'd been the type to scream, "Oh! You're breaking the rules!" and at first The World was no exception; my first year as Shiranza had been spent reporting illegal characters. Common sense had clicked in around age sixteen though, and I realized that not all hacks were cheats. Many people had only changed their appearance to make them more individual, and while Shiranza had never received any such modifications, I'd had fun toying around with the avatars of about half of the others. With the exception of one I'd given green skin to make into an alien, this new character had the most noticeable change of all.

Her human ears had already been hidden behind her hair, so I gave her a pair of black ears on top of her head, pointed and fluffy. Advanced as these hacks were, they even tied into the emoticons we could type in, meaning that my ears would perk of I was /curious and lay back if I was /mad. After a moment of playing around with this, I decided she looked like something was missing still; the style of armor I'd given her was close to the default for her class, but it was changed enough that there was a break in her hip armor at the back, leaving a gap perfect for a tail.

I added one right away. I took a long fluffy fox tail and played around with the colors till It went with my ears; reddish black with a white tip. The tail swished in time with the movement of my hips and even reacted to a few of the emoticons. Truly a marvel of programming. For a moment, my awe combined with my lack of faith in myself as a writer made me reconsider careers; could I create something this fascinating?

I'm sure if my friends had been there, they would have simply attributed it to how easily amused I am.

Modifications complete, I saved the data where it needed to go and loaded everything up.

Mac Anu, the Delta root town, spread before me as I gated in. My character was devoid of emotion as I wasn't typing in emoticons frantically, but irl my heart was pounding, my eyes wide as I surveyed the town I hadn't been to since before college as though it were my first time there. The thick canals were bathed in red light from the sunset, small gondalas floating by down the river. Players - no, people - were everywhere, huddled tightly together in some areas, sitting alone in others, all of them so full of life, so talkative, so... everything!

This is where my new city had felt familiar from, I realized. This was where I knew I belonged.

A slightly shorter player came running up to me, stopping beside me and looking me over for a moment. "Are you new too?" she said after a moment, and I laughed, my ears flicking a few times.

"Yes," I told her, and before I knew it, I was being pulled off to a field. _Me._ _I_ was the one being pulled off to go fight monsters with my big sword. Not Lyra Kamiya. Me.

I was finally home.

It wasn't until my alarm was going off telling me it was time to get up that I finally turned off the game. The ten hour marathon was but one of the few I've had in The World since, and in all honesty, an hour once a week is enough to return me to full creative ability. Just a bit of time in the comfort of my home and my real skin.

But Lyra's story, it seemed, would quickly become so interesting that it would take over my muse.


End file.
